I haven’t entirely lost my cheer, and I don’t think I will ever lose my curiosity

Hard to entirely lose your cheer so long as you’re surrounded by decent people, and by the sounds of it (curiousity) you’re decent people :D I can wholly relate with this bit at least, I’m bitter but not all gone. I need to get in better shape, kinda crashed hard due to (non-covid) reasons during the pandemic and have been recovering and stumbling since.

And I totally get what you mean about fools of all ages/etc. I also have the same attitude (things might be indicative, but they might not) and would like to think I generally get along well with people in general (even older fools do tend to have their lives more materially and socially in place though, and that’s the distance I meant was intimidating).

My levels of avoidance based off of indicators has greatly increased though- it was already there from being Asian, increased when I realized I was trans- and then the increased racism and Sinophobia since and before the pandemic (ethnic Chinese, also as someone whose family comes from ASEAN I’m well aware what the west is trying to do in destroying/blockading the trade and cooperation there and even the history of anti-Chinese persecution which my grandparents and great-grandparents suffered), the enthusiastic fascism and warmongering across the collective west with Ukraine, and finally the live-streamed, industrial genocide in Gaza (as the worst of all, at this point TBH I’m not merely alienated but disgusted and repulsed) have cratered it. I can still fend for myself or for basic decency and do, and still treat people like people- but I just mind my own business and stick to those I know more than not.

if you managed to bring in the aunties you’ve met, it would be such a huge boon to the community! how much they like it here might depend a lot on their sense of humor, though – will they think ppb is funny, if they know the background of it?

True. Maybe in time, I’d probably have to at least warn them about the ppb.

pretty much lol

Couldn’t agree more. China has its genuine issues (and I believe- from all I have seen, with this belief only growing the more I learn of the complexities of the Chinese system, that it is on the path to and diligently working to address them- and I say this as someone who used to be a doubter).

But the difference is night and day. China isn’t driving its citizenry or even the broader world into greater and more exploitative disenfranchisement by the day (unlike the western imperialist system), rather the opposite, it is lifting its people out of poverty and taking extensive measures to do so even for the most disenfranchised (ethnic minorities, generational poverty, etc), and peacefully collaborating with nations to assist them in doing the same.

China isn’t flagrantly destroying the biosphere, leaving others to clean up its messes, and promoting Enlightened Individualism™ of nations where poor developing countries (like China till very recently- and it is still developing) are blamed for using what they need to survive while the history of western excesses (which were at the expense of the global south no less) is conveniently dismissed; rather, it is working with nations to solve the issues of environmentalism and their own material conditions rather than expecting the developing (colonized) world to bask in enlightened, environmentally-friendly austerity, asceticism, and anarcho-primitivism so that their colonial “superiors” can maintain their modern lives without ecological collapse.

China isn’t supporting (religious, racial/ethnic, political) extremism and criminality (organized crime and in particular human and drug trafficking) across the entire globe, and it isn’t operating with some grand (not-so-hidden, considering the Wolfowitz doctrine) scheme of destabilizing all corners of the earth to maintain perpetual dominance and expansion. China isn’t holding a gun to its neighbors’ heads, even in the most questionable disputes they are not barbaric imperialists (unlike the west which is literally holding a metaphorical gun to China’s head, and to the rest of the world’s heads as well). China isn’t pushing for WW3, or even pushing for conflict in any geopolitical region, but rather seeking de-escalation and the development of peaceful multipolarity and mutual dialogue.

The west is basically marching the world full speed ahead to environmental and nuclear armageddon, and actively promoting the immiseration and further destruction of all of humanity in the meantime (through further championing the contradictions of capital and trying to maintain hegemony). China isn’t doing any of that, it is working towards the opposite- and even if someone really believed in the “evil SEESEEPEE” all of the above is still true- and it could also be said that similarly, none of the BRICS or the global south at large are even remotely comparable to the west in these regards.

I haven’t read anything that would suggest that was the case.

The initial underfunding (which led to black market mechanisms for access to healthcare) is consistent with the relative drop in revenue for the government, from 30 percent to 10 percent of GDP in the 15 years from the early 80s to the mid 90s.

Then, if I was to put myself in the mind of a CPC planner in the mid to late 1980s, you’re seeing economic growth significantly accelerate from the introduction of market reforms - so if you don’t think you can fund the system properly (you discount Cuba in this scenario), it would not be a wild idea at first glance to legitimise and give structure to existing practices in the healthcare sector - do some relatively minor changes and kick the can of massive root and branch reform down the road.

And we have seen the CPC continue to make comparatively minor changes to the broader welfare system (generally in a direction beneficial for Chinese citizens) since then, without the sort of massive reform to Hukou and welfare that would otherwise be required.

If I were to put on my China watcher Orientalist telepathy helmet I would guess that XJP and similar thinkers in the CPC would want to continue to put off that level of reform at least until China has met the stated goals for the initial stage of a prosperous country (30k GDP per capita), and have made all the national improvements to things like standardised credit history, trade and rule of law across the country before tackling welfare.

Yeah if you’re that paranoid you probably shouldn’t be on the internet or should just use tor for everything. Everyone knows I’m a filthy queer pinko in my town and nothings really come of it Even my boss knows I’m a commie, which is funny

To clarify, by opsec i meant “avoiding personal information in publicly visible posts”, not “being afraid to get tracked through the survey”. And when i look at the breakdown of cis pronouns in the results, there’s a lot of he /hims, but also a bunch of different ones. Sure, cis women are extremely rare here, and they’d still be if all of the cis people with gender neutral pronouns where women, but i can’t help being nitpicky because i’m an awful nerd about surveying.

Oh yeah I get it was about the comment I quoted to respond to now but I felt my stomach lurch before I realized that 🫠

We need similar purges for misogynists

We need bait threads. Not only to lure out the worst offenders, but also to drive discussion that will reeducate everyone else. Purging isn’t enough. There needs to be site discourse, so that when someone points out misogyny, enough other people will recognize that they’re right to prevent a dogpile. Also people here need practice articulating why a comment is misogynistic, which will help with enforcement.